The win means so much more!

Today, the results of the India Currents Katha: Desi Fiction Contest 2015 are out. I'm thrilled to have won the second place for my short story, "Miss, Dolly, and Hulk". The award means much more than the $200 prize that accompanies a publishing of the story in their August issue.
             After a career  teaching Electronics in three different cities, I was seriously contemplating on a doctorate (on a topic in Medical Electronics I hold dear to my heart), when personal reasons compelled me to quit. And I became a stay-at-home mom.
Not a TV person or one inclined to shopping sprees or chat sessions, it was natural I turned to my old friends, books. The days spooled out endlessly, packed with cooking and housekeeping chores, and I grew possessive about my reading time. I had written from the age of eight and then tapered off at eighteen after I edited the NIE college magazine. I did read sporadically but diverted my energy into bringing up my daughters, studying for my M.Tech and teaching undergraduates. The desire to write just packed up and left.
In November 2013 when my first 'Middle' appeared in the Deccan Herald, it stoked the desire to pour myself in words once again. As I wrote, I continued to read voraciously and realized I had stumbled onto the right track again.
Nothing gives me greater joy than words--the one's I read, and those that I use to shape the lives of my characters.
A niggling self-doubt and despair has been laid to rest with today's win. I've endorsed the writer in me. I can look forward to writing with greater confidence.
But I will continue to jealously guard my writing space and time. So diversions beware!

Banana cake and the baking journey.

Three large ripe bananas hugged each other on my fruit tray; they were firm with small dark spots on the smooth yellow skin. I Googled a recipe for banana cake and came up with one that used oil and only two eggs. An hour later a brown beauty sat sighing softly on the kitchen counter; the house that had darkened in the afternoon, courtesy dark June clouds, suddenly brightened with the aroma of bananas wafting through the rooms. It tasted just as good.

I have a recipe book that I faithfully followed as a young wife; the curly writing of my mother’s hand guided me through recipes for her sponge cake and plum cake, sweet and salt biscuits. She also gifted me her folder of recipes from a baking class her sister went to in Lalbagh and a set of cyclostyled (do kids today even know that this word means?) sheets that she received when her Ladies Club conducted baking classes. She has marked corrections and alternate measures, changed baking timings and made tiny notes, thus ensuring I have recipes that will work.

I baked independently in Germany using the gas cooking range. Thanks to Karin and Barbara, we celebrated Ps first birthday with three German cakes! I still bake the marble cake and apple pie. I’ve never found fresh cherries like those from Barbara’s home, so I’ve never baked a cherry pie again. 

I attended a day’s course on baking at the Volk Hoch Schule and came back with a slice each of some ten exotic German cakes, that I’ve never tried again because they are so complicated. (The class was fun with the instructor inquiring from me if my religion allowed the tasting of cakes with lots of liquor! Black forest cake with its signature Kirch Wasser is unbeatable. I said I didn't mind, of course!)

My OTG is about 17 years old and looks sturdy and capable as ever. My recipe book has collected recipes from dear friends and I’ve gone on to bake many cakes. I still feel the warm glow when I peer into the deep oven and watch a cake rise. Dieting teenagers love cakes and low calories, and somehow before I befriended Google I wasn’t sure how to achieve that.

Today anonymous people share fantastic recipes and when I bit through the raisins and walnuts in the warm slice of banana cake, I sent a ‘thank you’ across the WWW. 

I’ve noted this recipe down in my thick bound notebook with my comments and corrections. Who knows, my children may want to bake someday following a recipe written in my curly hand writing.

This garden rocks! A farewell to its architect.

  Last year, on a hot April afternoon in Chandigarh we bowed our heads to enter a low door. We knew this was a unique creation of Nek Chand but were unprepared for his sheer genius and creativity.  Stretched before us was the splendid Rock Garden.
Creations from waste are tastefully placed in a forty-acre expanse of greenery. Nek Chand passed away yesterday and has left behind a symbol of conservation that shows how broken china, gunny bags ,tires, broken bangles and even human hair from barber shops can be used to create a vast space of recreation and joy to visitors across the world.
My article covering  the visit appeared in the 'Travel' section of the Sunday Herald on 22nd June 2014. You can read it here. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/415068/kingdom-gods.html

I've added a few pictures here from our visit.

Horses 

Broken china to a music band!

The hut where Nek Chand began his creation.

A fort in the Kingdom

Broken bangles to a bevy of beauties!

Look at a gift horse in the mouth!

Gifting Gods

It was a hot Sunday morning in June. Thousands of people had gathered, forming serpentine queues to get a glimpse of the Goddess atop the Chamundi Hill. Loud devotional songs and cautionary announcements to devotees to safeguard their valuables rent the air. People using a ‘special ticket’ were ushered in with lesser delay. Some friends also spoke of using ‘influence’ to obtain a darshan closest to the sanctum sanctorum. But the majority of us felt this would be unfair on the huge crowds waiting patiently in the sun. Maybe we could come back early morning on another day. Before we left we observed how a locked temple door was opened readily for a film star and his bodyguards. It set me thinking about devotion.

Abandoned

Beheaded

I believe that God is everywhere and often find His presence in Nature, in doing my work sincerely and in leading a life following ethical guidelines set by my parents and teachers during my childhood. I’m happy and contented that way. I respect the others who worship and show their faith in ways different from mine, but what shocked me was the abandonment of Gods.

The other day I was walking to the park. At the turning of the road, on the edge of a gutter was a brand-new Ganesha idol with gift wrapping still clinging to it in places. Someone had assuaged their guilt by placing a long stem of Canna flowers against its left shoulder. Inside the park was a two feet idol of Shiva discarded under a rain tree. Subsequent rains beheaded the idol. I’ve observed this elsewhere too: old framed pictures of Gods and Goddesses no longer wanted inside puja rooms are left under trees or inside parks. Maybe the squirrels, mynas and crows do the worshiping. Or a few stary cats and dogs have turned to God.

I remember the old cottage where my grandparents lived. The walls were almost hidden behind calendars dating from many years past. All had giant pictures of Gods. My grandparents were perplexed as to how they could throw these revered objects and hung them on the walls unable to refuse.

Idols of Gods are considered the most appropriate choice when it comes to gifting. But how many of these can you keep and maintain with the respect and devotion they inspire? Fear keeps the recipient from showing disappointment or disregard for the gift, but then there really is no place in his/her home. Some new gifts are re-packaged and parceled off to some other unsuspecting bride or groom or a house owner. They will open their gift and scratch their heads. Like an unwanted foster child it will be sent off to a new home or deserted in some dark park hoping that some needy soul will adopt it and provide the care and adoration the God inspires.

Odd colored polyester blouse pieces of insufficient length, plastic trays and baskets, white metal lamps and artifacts.... I'll take these up on my next post. But you know how we are swamped by these!